


To Jenna

by tea_petty



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Love Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 13:18:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19853995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_petty/pseuds/tea_petty
Summary: Asra leaves his apprentice, Jenna, with a lot to think about in his wake.





	To Jenna

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr; tea-petty

_Jenna,_

_By the time you read this, I’ll already be long gone – and not without my own regrets regarding that. Believe me when I say that at least; every mile I spend away from you, I spend away from my heart too, because that remains with you as well._

_Does that shock you? Do butterflies assault your gut, or does your mind feel itchy with memories of the moments we’ve touched – every graze of a knuckle, or unassuming brush singed into your skin?_

_I can only tell you that I speak of these things in such detail because I’m well acquainted with the feelings myself; feelings I more than suspect you harbor too…_

_What these are exactly I can’t say, at least not here, much as it pains me. We will speak of them though, properly, and upon my swift return, I promise you that._

_It is then I’ll be able to return what was once yours, as discussed; your memories, and with it, your mastery at magic. With it, our rich history, and with that, your claim to me._

Jenna’s eyes ran over the letter; Asra’s ornate handwriting embossing the luxurious parchment in his whimsical script. It was just a letter, perhaps even a… _specific_ sort of letter, but it didn’t look the part in the slightest, resembling the ancient tomes and scrolls he’d kept stashed in his study.

Each word, echoed in her mind as she took it in, as clearly as if Asra were whispering in her ear himself. Heat suffused her skin, and for a moment, she wasn’t certain it wasn’t his warm breath fanning over her, as if he were poised behind her as well.

Jenna felt the phantom of his sturdiness behind her and resisted the urge to lean back into it. 

She startled at a ghosted touch at her shoulders; not quite firm and warm – but rather, the hint of such firmness and warmth; a heated daydream that had gotten a tad bit too inspired, or else, the grips of an enthralling fantasy that was trying to will itself into fruition. 

Jenna didn’t dare wonder if Asra dreamt of skimming his fingers along the edge of her shoulders as she was half-convinced, he might have been now. Surely, even his magic had its limits.

Her body sang fervently for its limitlessness. 

She gripped the parchment tighter, her white-knuckled grasp crinkling the stiff, weighty paper.

_Sometimes, I get to thinking about the days we spent in Nopal, and it’s the strangest thing – I ache for you agonizingly. And, still, it feels a little less raw at the same time._

_I think it’s two sides of the same coin; I remember the way you helped me in the kitchen that afternoon. Our hands would touch as you wordlessly passed me ingredients, and neither of us could bring it upon ourselves to mention it. How sweet the rice pudding tasted – undoubtedly the result of what we exchanged while we made it._

_Or later that night, as we lay beside each other in bed, as we’ve done a thousand times before, and will a thousand times again. That night was different though. That night, you lay, as stiff as a board, your arms neatly tucked to your sides, as if you were afraid of taking up any more space. Meanwhile, I burned for you, every fiber in my being begging for you to take up more._

_My hand felt blindly for you beneath the blankets, searching, because even in the mere inches that separated us, you felt an entire world away._

_I wonder if you felt what I did when my fingers brushed against yours. I suppose it was similar, because I swear, I saw the last of your resolve crumble as you turned, using the tenuous hold we’d struck to guide your body towards mine. We fell asleep like that; with the stars spying on us over a clay windowsill, and us, too wrapped up in each other to care either way._

_I think it’s there I was my most honest – the truest version of myself, with the perfume of your hair in my nose, and your warm breath mingling with my own from the hairsbreadth between us._

_I like to think of it as a sort of bridge; the same sort built of magpies and that span the tumultuous star flow of the heavens, because it didn’t take long at all for our lips to find each other, dispelling the practiced lies our tight-lipped smiles told in the inquisitive daylight._

_You may be stuck on calling me ‘Master’, but it is I who has learned from you; things that cannot be taught in the books or tomes we study. Things that cannot be defined by formulas or algorithms. What I’ve learned from you, is buried deep within the most secret innerworkings of our hearts, and I firmly believe it isn’t until you meet someone who holds a particular hold on you, that you can go back and visit that part again._

_To love someone is to know with your heart and soul, and blood and bone that they are yours and you are theirs, and all the things in between that fall under that ownership._

_We have much to discuss Jenna, as I’m sure you understand now, the gravity of what I intend to address._

Jenna’s throat tightened, as if the heaviness in her chest was enough to pull her tightly shut, like the deadweight on a pulley system. When she found her breath again, she swore it was Asra’s scent then, that swirled around her; the dizzying, rich whiff of incense and old books, so aged with reverence and wisdom that they seemed to shed it as easily as they did the dust they collected over the years.

Jenna inhaled more deeply now, half to get her wits back about her, and half to taste Asra’s memory more soundly.

They _did_ have some things to discuss, memories or no memories, Jenna couldn’t deny that. Even without the long-unraveled history they seemingly were bound to, she couldn’t ignore how she moved to him, as seamlessly as the tide encroached on the shores. It was a primal magnetism that bound them – Asra was right - their fates were twined. Whatever came from this letter and their talk, they’d have to confront it together.

Her eyes fell on his whimsical scrawl once again.

_Be well until I can return to you again._

_Yours always,_

_Asra_


End file.
